Extension
It Starts With Us
Improving Dietary Habits
Making Healthy Lifestyle Choices
Kathy Byrnes, Joan Bowling,
Active Living and Health Promotions General
Plate It Up! Kentucky Proud
Food Preparation and Preservation
The obesity epidemic threatens the quality and years of life of Kentuckians. Obese individuals are at increased risk for many chronic health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and some types of cancers. The obesity rate in Kentucky increased 90 percent over the last 15 years. According to the 2013 Kentucky Health Issues Poll, only 31% of Northern Kentucky adults reported eating the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables per day. Increased consumption of unhealthy food, stress, and built environments that promote physical inactivity are largely responsible for the obesity epidemic. As a result, Kentuckians are dying from heart disease and cancer at higher rates than all Americans and they have a lower life expectancy, 75.5 years, compared to 78 years for Americans. The goal of the Making Healthy Lifestyle Choices Initiative is to reverse these trends by working with various organizations, agencies, and groups to promote health and wellness in all Kentuckians.
• A decrease in the number of obese and overweight children, youth, adults and elderly
• Increase in the practice and promotion of physical activity and healthy eating daily
• Manage and prevent the risk, debilitation, and premature death related to diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke and hypertension
• Increase the estimated health savings in dollars for chronic disease
• Practice healthy food choices and strengthen individuals’ ability to build healthy eating plans and patterns.
• Maintain appropriate calorie balance during each stage of life: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and older age
• Changes related to obesity, physical activity and healthy eating.
• Strengthen community coalitions or partnerships to address obesity, physical inactivity and chronic disease.
• Practice healthy lifestyle decision-making that strengthen individuals’ ability to cope with normal life stressors.
Change in awareness, knowledge, opinions, skills, and attitudes needed to make informed choices regarding:
• Healthy lifestyle choices
• Childhood and youth obesity
• Adult weight management
• Healthy aging
• Reduction of chronic disease
Outcome: Learn about and practice healthy food choices
Indicator: Food diaries, participant responses
Method: Mail out follow-up evaluations, in-class discussion
Timeline: All year
Outcome: Discover and maintain appropriate calorie balance during each stage of life
Indicator: Self reporting
Method: Class evaluations
Timeline: All year
Outcome: Strengthen community coalitions or partnerships to address obesity and chronic disease rates
Indicator: Increased partner directed activities that address these issues
Method: Agent meeting activity sheets
Timeline: All year
Outcome: Increased knowledge of chronic disease risks in program participants
Indicator: Responses from program participants
Method: Post program surveys
Timeline: All year
Audience: Kenton County families
Project or Activity: Plate It Up, Kentucky Proud!
Content or Curriculum: Plate It Up!
Inputs: KEHA lesson, FCS Agent developed lessons
Date: Fall and Spring
Audience: Northern Kentucky Diabetes committee
Project or Activity: Diabetes reduction activities; diabetes support group
Content or Curriculum: American Diabetes Association, Taking Ownership of your Diabetes
Inputs: Health Department Educators, FCS Agent
Date: All year
Audience: General Public
Project or Activity: Food, nutrition, and safety news articles
Content or Curriculum: UK exclusives, nutrition publications
Inputs: FCS Agent developed
Date: Weekly articles--rotate topicsAudience: Elsmere Senior Center
Project or Activity: Improve nutritional habits
Content or Curriculum: UK FCS nutrition lesson
Inputs: UK SNAP curriculum
Date: Monthly 2022-2023
Audience: Lunch & Learn Simon Kenton
Project or Activity: Improve Eating Habits
Content or Curriculum: UK nutrition lesson
Inputs: UK SNAP curriculum
Date: Monthly 2022-23 School YearAudience: Adults needing cooking skill
Project of Activity: Knife Skills
Content of Curriculum: UK Extension Fact sheets
Inputs: Super Star Chef
Date: Fall 2022Audience: Adults needing cooking skill
Project of Activity: Baking Basics – Celebrate Whole Grains Month
Content of Curriculum: UK Extension Fact sheets
Inputs: Wheat Council, Home Baking Association
Date: Fall
Author: Ola Donahue
Major Program: Health
Kentucky 4-H Passport Kitchen Program. The Kentucky 4-H Passport Kitchen program provided 433 young people from Kentucky the opportunity to experience the food cultures of different countries in a self-paced experience. As part of the 4-H Passport Kitchen program, young people received six country kits in the mail during a six-week window. These kits provided all the needed instructions to complete a recipe, a video explaining the recipe, one ingredient for the recipe, information abo
Author: Ola Donahue
Major Program: Recipes for Life
Alternative schools are essentially specialized educational environments that place a great deal of emphasis on small classrooms, high teacher-to-student ratios, individualized instruction, noncompetitive performance assessments, and less structured classrooms (Raywid 1983). The purpose of these schools is to provide academic instruction to students expelled or suspended for disruptive behavior or mental or health issues, or who are unable to succeed in the mainstream school environment (Ingerso
